Maxim Gorky

Alexei Peshkov was born in Russia in 1868. His parents died when he was eleven and he lived with his grandmother, who was very poor and could not read or write. He later wrote an autobiography and the first part, ‘My Childhood’, talks about this time and creates a beautiful picture of the old lady. When he was twenty-one, Peshkov tried to kill himself and later walked for five years across Russia, the biggest country in the world. In 1898, his first book of short stories became very successful and Peshkov changed his name to Gorky. It means ‘bitter’. He was very interested in Communism and became friends with Lenin. This meant he spent a lot of time in prison and also left his home country to live on Capri, an Italian island far away from Russia. Gorky’s relationship with the Bolsheviks, who started a revolution in Russia in 1917, was always difficult. He visited Russia many times but lived abroad until he was an old man. He died – or maybe was killed – in 1936. The leader of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin, helped to carry his coffin.